I took the plunge into com's at last!

[Midnitemo]

After much study , listening , talking and procrastination I finally went and bought my first transceiver , I bought a Yaesu FT60E there are many reason's why I chose this unit , it's simplicity , it's pedigree , it's longevity of production but mainly because of peoples warmth and affection to it on the ham forum's , I finally got to see and handle a Baofeng UV5 at work of all places , I turned up for work early one day last week(previously unheard of lol)and caught my oppo with one tuned into our onsite private security(who'd have thought it eh?)this guy is a young technically savvy cutting edge gismo kind of guy who loves his tech but he said if I were you I'd look for something simpler , he very obviously knows my prowess with technology!!!! which as it turn's out was fine by me as I didn't like the look,feel or sound of the Baofeng .
I needed to see/try my chosen unit in the flesh so Lightspeed directed me to my nearest dealer(LAM in Yorkshire FFs)luckily I had other business over there so killed two birds with one stone , sadly the store had a display model but no stock(popular or niche I guess)i was given a quick demo and straight away I figured I could cope with it so I ordered one on my phone whilst sat outside said dealer from another main dealer in the Portsmouth area(Nevada...cheaper too!) the other thing's that drew me to this model were its power options , I bought the dry cell adapter so it will run off 6 aa's , I bought a 12v car adapter with noise suppressor(I have a homemade 12v female car ciggy lighter with croc clip connectors already so it will work off any 12v battery) and most important I bought the antenna that was mentioned most as the biggest performance enhancement the Diamond SRH771....transceiver(£105 posted, £12&£22 battery case and ciggy lead and £19 posted for the Antenna=£158 not cheap and I know it could be done a lot cheaper but I really don't want the hassle of using a pc to program it and in truth even though my beloved Triumphs are mostly made there now I've had little luck with most thing's I've bought out of China(The ft60 is made in China hopefully under the watchful eyes of a little Japanese QC man) after a day of messing with it at work I've placed an order with Nevada for his last one and a spare battery too so I now have two!